Whalefall

This is very close to 4.5 stars and maybe I'll update that in the future. This was a whaley good time. (Really good time haha.) I saw this book on Goodreads, and it immediately piqued my interest. It ended up being exactly what I wanted, a realistic science fiction thriller that takes you through the struggles of father and son relationships through the belly of a whale. The main protagonist Jay is wonderful to read, the struggle between him and his father written throughout the entire novel is well put together.

I like how short the chapters are, it felt very action-packed because of it, almost a little bit too much at times. Kraus fits a whole lot into the 300 pages of this book. I will say it follows the flashback trope, something it's hard NOT to see in modern-day writing but it differed enough in style that I wasn't too pissed off.

The whale "talking" to Jay was interesting, it helped wrap up the things at the end of the novel. I think it might be a slightly cold take to say I would have preferred Jay to come to these conclusions with his dad without this. It took away from how realistic the novel was, it was researched thoroughly and felt fairly plausible all things considered. When that stuff came in, I lost the voice of the novel slightly, although I can understand others not feeling the same way. That's how the book left me though. Still loved it and look forward to reading more of Kraus!